Fiery people may be smokers

Some people may truly be born to smoke. A study finds that the brains of men and women with naturally hostile, aggressive personalities respond more to nicotine than their non-hostile contemporaries.

This trait was identified by researchers at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine. Dr. Steven Potkin, a psychiatry professor, led the study in which personality exams were given to smokers and non-smokers who were then divided into two groups--one with anger, aggression and hostility, the other without. Participants got nicotine patches and underwent PET scans.

Among aggressive people, nicotine triggered significant metabolic changes in parts of the brain that control social response, thinking and planning. Among those with non-hostile personalities, nicotine created no changes in those regions. The study appeared in the journal Cognitive Brain Research.